Scott Strickland takes GAM Championship in low fashion

Scott Strickland won the GAM Championship, firing an 8-under-par 64 in the final round.

Photo by Christian Davis

BIRMINGHAM — Scott Strickland’s caddy, David Enderby, just had that feeling before the final round of the 92nd Golf Association of Michigan championship Aug. 6 at Birmingham Country Club.

Strickland, a 2001 Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood graduate, sat three strokes off the lead having hit the ball well the previous 36 holes, but not sinking any putts.

“Yesterday, when nothing fell and he wasn’t pleased about it, I said, ‘Hey, we’re saving it for tomorrow, and you’re going to go all Johnny Miller on me,’” Enderby said, referring to Miller’s 63 in the final round of the 1973 U.S. Open, giving him the championship.

Strickland was close, firing an 8-under-par 64 to win the title with a 208 total in the 54-hole event. Casey Baker of Ann Arbor was second, six shots behind.

“If he had made that putt on the last hole, it would have been 63,” Enderby said with a smile.

Strickland said it was an honor to win the prestigious event.

“From kind of the first hole on, the breaks were going my way. I got a nice bounce on No. 1, where it bounced over the front bunker and rolled up to a foot for eagle. That was a good start, and then I hit it to six or eight inches on No. 2 for birdie,” Strickland said, who finished one stroke off the course record.

“It’s one of those things where if you can clear your mind of all the other stuff that’s going on and just react to the target, that’s usually when I play my best. That’s what I tried to do today.”